The project site is over 1,000 feet deep. The first 400 feet of it is a natural dune system with a cover of indigenous species and only a negligible presence of exotics. From the backside of the last foredune eastward, however, the Australian exotics have generously provided a perfect example of the damage they can do.

Since the above photo was taken, the Australian Pines that have for decades occupied Bean Point to varying degrees (between the rare hard freezes that kill them back) had spread over the project site. Without the constant maintenance required to remove the falling needles, the grounds in their vicinity are now devoid of any native vegetation -- such as the Sea oats and wildflowers that still thrive on the Gulf side of the dune and also still grow at the other end of the lot beyond the reach of windblown Pine needles.

And in its place, the Pines enabled their companion devestators, the also Australian Carrotwood Trees to start a new and exclusive understory forest for themselves wherever crowdroppings could fall from the Pine branches above.

The section to the north of the site where little attempt has ever been made to control these exotics is a veritable wasteland. What is not covered by Pines, either living or fallen, or by Carrotwood saplings, is smothered in sprawling Brazilian peppers. In the summer of 2004, the property was stripped of every exotic tree, shrub, and groundcover, and through the winter any that re-emerged were killed in preparation for the Spring '05 installation of the new dunescape.